a history lesson

I saw on the local news last night that the Vietnam Traveling Wall would be on display in a couple of towns over from us. I asked Senior if we could take the boys.
So, after leaving a mega gun show we drove over to the park where the wall was on display.

Very reverent site....

First thing was the items on display..Guns that were used, sleeping bags, clothing. You see in movies where the guys would write stuff on the side of their helmets, I saw it for real today. 
I got a chuckle from the Vet who was explaining the AK-47 to someone, the Vet was all up in arms about how Russians were really good at stealing designs from other people, and that in fact it was not Kalashnikov that created the AK but it was in fact the Germans.

Then there was the Traveling Wall Memorial:



Notes and pictures were laid on the grass of troops who lived in the area and died. One such item was an ole toy gun. The soldiers sister had placed it there and wrote a note to her brother, and was remembering when they use to play "Cops and Robbers"   Oh Man, I got weepy eyed.

This man in the red shirt, was a tour guide He explained the panels to the crowd.. Somethings I did not know, was that the wall begins and ends in the middle. The names on the first  panel marked the deaths in the first five months of fighting...the next panels represents the next five weeks...and so on, until one single panel represents the mortality rate in a 5 day span.

We headed over to another trailer with memorabilia and another Vet took the boys under his wing and gave them a verbal history lesson. He told us the story of the youngest known Marine who died in Vietnam. I was intrigued by the story, and a part of me found it hard to believe, so I came home and researched it, and indeed it was true.
 His name was Dan Bullock, and when he was 14 he altered his birth certificate and enlisted In Sept. 1968.
He made it through boot camp and in May 1969 was assigned as a rifleman 2nd Squad, 2nd Platoon, Fox Company 2nd battalion 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division. He died June 1969 when his platoon came under small arms fire one night. He was only 15.

RIP PFC Bullock.

This kid remains on my mind this evening. To put it in perspective,  when he enlisted he was only 5 years older then our 9 year old son.  As I think about this Marine, I wonder if Obama had a son would he have looked like PFC Bullock? Probably not.
This boys life could have taken so many other turns, but he knew at such a young age that he wanted to be a Marine. He fought bravely and along with over 58,000 other brave Americans he died for his country. The portrait of a Great American.

The Origin of the Middle Finger

I got such a surprising and overwhelming response to my post yesterday on Bad Words, that I thought I would extend it today and do one on something we have all done at least once in our life time, and that would be giving some one “The Bird”

 This idea actually comes from our first son, NW who for the longest time would use his middle finger to point at people, or objects. We told him that some people would not find it polite and not like it and to please use his index finger. Of course he questioned why.

And then I started wondering why the middle finger is bad? When did it originate? So again with hot coffee by my side, I began to research.

A story that refers to the gestures of long bowmen fighting in the English army at the Battle of Agincourt in particular is often mentioned when we speak about the Middle Finger history.
Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future.

This famous weapon was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew"). Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, "See, we can still pluck yew

However great that story is, unfortunately it is not true.  Giving someone "the finger" is one of the basest violations in modern culture, but its origins date back over 2500 years. The first written record of the insult occurred in ancient Greece, where the playwright Aristophanes (the Adam Sandler of his day) made a crude joke mixing up the middle finger and the penis. Even back then, the bird was considered an aggressive, phallic put-down.

When the Romans imported the art, music, and culture of the Greeks, the finger came along, too. Roman Emperor Caligula, a pioneer in perversity, frequently shocked his citizens by forcing them to kiss his middle finger instead of his hand. One of his subjects, Cassius, who Caligula often taunted as being too effeminate, finally had enough humiliation and assassinated him. Clearly, the bird was not to be taken lightly.

During the middle ages, it kind of went underground as it was highly frowned upon by the Catholic Church. Then at some point in the 19^th century it began to show up again, this was most likely due to the invention of photography. Then came the automobile and the insult could be delivered behind the safety of glass and metal.

Throughout the 20^th century The Finger penetrated all levels of society. Even the Vice President of the United States got into the act. At a campaign stop for Senator Bob Dole in 1976, Nelson Rockefeller was heckled by protesters telling him what they thought of his Vietnam War policy by casting their middle finger votes. Never one to back down, the VP just gave the finger right back.

 Connecticut Court ruled the finger was not obscene and it was forever released from its cage.  And now with the new millennium this once endangered species has been saved from the brink of extinction and thrust in to the mainstream forever.

-JUGM

 

 

The Origins of the Bad Word

Driving to school this morning, ND asked a proufound question " who invented  bad words mommy" ?  " oh sheesh"  I thought, "I have only had one cup of coffee and its a monday- am I really ready to tackle this question? " I know he has heard things on TV, and even there has been times Senior and I have slipped up...The question was inevitable.

"I really don't know, I think they just developed over the years"
NW spoke up and said " I think it was Mr. John Dirtyword, who invented them" 
"No", I said "I don't think that is exactly true"

The conversation did get me to thinking, "Where did bad words originate"? So I came home, ate my raisin bran, and poured a cup of coffee and sat down to research.
Most of the words were derived from the Germanic language.
 Take the "F-word" for instance:

This is an old word. OLD. In fact, we aren't entirely certain we can trace it back definitively because it was so much more prevalent in common speech than in written form. It is assumed to originate from the Germanic languages (the German "f****n", the Dutch "fokken", the Norwegian "f*kka" and the Swedish "fokka") but there are similar usages in the Latin/Greek languages

There are plenty of urban legends surrounding the history of this particular word, but most have been found to be false. For example, the word "f**k" did not come from "File Under Carnal Knowledge", "Fornication Under the Command of the King", False Use of Carnal Knowledge", and any other iterations involving acronyms.

The first known occurrence of the word (at least the most accepted) is in code in a poem in a French/Latin mix which satirizes the Carmelite monks of Cambridge from around 1500. The line reads "They are not in heaven because they f**k wives of Ely". It was probably coded because it spoke poorly of clergy... not something that would usually get into print since so much of the written word of that day was written BY clergy.

In my search for the origins of words, I also came across that there was once an African tribal king Named "Mutafuk" who demanded all his subjects go around saying his name. Well, it evolved in to the now black communities which is why they call each other "Mother -----"  ( Okay, so that might not be entirely true!  )

"S---T" Probably an Old English word, it is very likely another one with its roots in the Germanic languages. That's where all the best words seem to come from. The Old English noun "scite" and the Middle Low German "schite"... both meaning dung, plus the word "scitte" meaning diarrhea. It first showed up in writing back in the 14th century, so this is another cuss word for the ages.
"D--MN"- First actually started out at as the french words "Damner" or Latin " Damnare" which both meant "loss" in the old English language it was "Damnum" which meant to pass judgement upon. Which is probably why the words "Damnation, and Hell" are so often used by theologians. And appears so much in the bible.

Basically what I learned is that they all started out as just mere words, but evolved over the centuries with emotions, and different meanings. I giggle some times when I remember a sermon my childhood paster would preach on the subject, he would look down from the pulpit and tell us that people use profanity, because they are too uneducated to think of something more intelligent to say. Wow at the time it really made me want to become smart so I could think of other ways to express myself. 

So, now I have completed my research in to the history of bad words, I feel all the more wiser and now I can sit with him and explain how they were created, and try to get him to understand that I know they are words, but they are not nice words, and our little mouths and brains should choose not to use them.

-JUGM